Friday, 22 June 2012

Issue 35 2011-12


Newsletter Issue 35

Friday 22nd June 2012


Dear Parent/Carer,

There are only four full weeks left in this school year.  How time does fly in schools!

Mrs Dale and I made a trip to London this week to learn from the experiences of Secondary Teaching Schools… the schools that are at the leading edge of schools practice in the country.  It was very encouraging for us that a lot of what was presented was practice that we are already very familiar with at Robin Hood.  There were also enhancements, good ideas and research evidence presented that we both felt we could learn from.  It is one of the responsibilities of a school rated outstanding that it continues to strive for excellence and for achieving new benchmarks.  I also visited an outstanding-rated school in Bradford on Thursday.  Again, there was a great deal of reassurance in terms of similarities with our own setting and also one or two little ideas for us to learn from.  School-to-school collaboration is essential to improving all schools.  That is one of the reasons that we have always been very generous with our time, experience and knowledge.  As I have shared with you many times, we have many schools come to visit us to see how things work here.  It is equally important that we look outwards for how good practice in other schools can help us.

Governors in School
My thanks to Mrs Wood for her visit into school this week.  Mrs Wood has been a long-serving Governor at Robin Hood and is, of course, our ex-Chair.  Our Governors make periodic visits into school throughout the year to talk with both myself and the leadership team and to look at our provision for children.  Mrs Wood always delights in talking with our children and in finding out about what they’re learning in school.  Our current Chair, Cllr Mulherin has also spent significant time in school recently helping Mrs Dale to prepare for her acting leadership of the school from September until a permanent appointment is made later in the year.  Both Mrs Dale and the Governing Body will be keeping you fully informed about developments as and when they happen.

Meet Your New Teacher Day
As stated in last week’s newsletter, our ‘New Class’ letters will come home next week in preparation for our ‘Meet Your New Teacher’ Day on 3 July.  Nursery is closed 3 July.  Our Year 6 pupils who are transferring to Rodillian should go direct to the school and be collected from there on the 3rd.  They should not come to Robin Hood.  Year 6 children not transferring to Rodillian and not on a Transfer Day to their new High School should come into school as usual.  If your child is ill and will not be present at the High School Transfer Day, please inform the School Office here as usual.  Mrs Dale attended a meeting of the Rothwell Family of Schools this week at which potentially very exciting plans for Year 6 transfer to High school from next year were discussed.  Watch this space for further information over the coming months.

Year 6 Robin wood Residential
The Year 6 team have arranged a meeting for current Year 5 pupils and parents to share details of next year’s Year 6 residential.  The meeting will take place on 27th June at 4.30pm.  The team will talk pupils and parents through the trip, share video of previous trips, explain the costs, the kit list and answer any questions.  There will also be pupils who went on this year’s residential there to share their fantastic experiences and happy memories.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mr Wilson


Nursery Newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP
The sun has been shining this week in Nursery and the children have taken full advantage of our wonderful outdoor area! We have enjoyed water play and large scale painting. The children have also been very green fingered as they tended to the garden, tidying the plant boxes and watering the flowers.

THIS WEEK
We shared the story of the Teeny Weeny Tadpole.  The children used the book as a way of helping them to learn the different stages in the life cycle of a frog. The children then used their knowledge of the process to sequence the process, by cutting and sticking the pictures in the right order.
Within number we have been counting with our puppet friend BOB and building on our sight recognition of numbers. We have also learnt the nursery rhyme 5 little speckled frogs, and added our own actions.

NEXT WEEK
The children will be taking a closer look at the process of growing plants and flowers. We will be taking a scientific approach as we learn to label the different parts of a flower and we carry out an investigation to find out what we need to do to grow healthy plants and flowers.
We will also be looking at the art work of Van Gough and creating our own version of his sunflower painting.

How you can help us
·         Continue developing your child’s recognition and awareness of the alphabet – sounding out and naming the letters.
·         Practise writing simple words like cat, dad, mum etc by listening for the sounds and writing them down.
·         Spot numbers in and around the environment and play games with your child that build on their skills of naming numbers.

REMINDER
As part of our healthy schools agenda we ask that the drinks bottle you provide your child with contains only WATER. You are welcome to provide your child with a juice drink in their lunch box for lunchtime, but it must be water for the rest of the day.

Many thanks for your continued support

Have a great weekend!
Miss Bradshaw and the Nursery team

Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had another great week in Reception, the weather has been a bit kinder to us and we have made the most of the sunshine. PLEASE NOTE next Monday the children will be completing their sponsored ‘walk a mile’ on the school field. It is intended that the event will take place regardless of the weather, so please can you check the forecast and send in sun hats/cream or a raincoat and wellies! Sponsor money should be handed in by Friday 13th July. Thank you.
THIS WEEK
We have been learning about the life cycle of a frog. The children have shared the story of the Teeny Weeny Tadpole as it moves from being a tadpole, to a froglet and finally a very bouncy frog! They have had lots of practice sequencing the stages and have made some brilliant contributions to our collaborative display. In numeracy we have been focusing on 1 more and 1 less and the children have really wowed us with their maths skills.
NEXT WEEK
We will be continuing to look at life cycles, but this time we will be finding out about the life cycle of a plant. The home learning task this week will support the children’s understanding as we would like them to plant a seed, thinking carefully about what it needs to grow and then write down exactly what they did. In numeracy we will be revisiting our calculation skills – looking at the number facts to ten and practising our quick mental recall of them. These skills will support your children with their addition and subtraction.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
·         By ensuring you listen to your child’s fabulous reading every day and writing a comment in their book. There is some amazing reading happening in Reception and we really want the children to sustain this. Thank you for your super support since September.
·         By ensuring your child completes their home learning and brings in their learning journal on MONDAY morning.
·         By sending in PE kits and other appropriate clothing including a bottle of water on Monday for the sponsored walk.
Thank you for your continued support and enjoy your weekend.
KS1 Newsletter

We have had such a super week in KS1! We are all looking forward to walking a mile to raise money for James Wish to walk, so please remember to bring appropriate clothing and footwear to suit the unpredictable weather. Also, please remember to send your child to school with a water bottle, and outdoor PE kit for the rest of this term.
Literacy

This week all of KS1 have planned and written a fabulous story. Your child was given a photograph of a castle, which acted as an initial stimulus to their writing. We were blown away with everybody’s ideas, and they all tried hard to include a variety of features within their writing. These include capital letters, full stops, connectives, a range of punctuation and developed paragraphs. Next week we will be watching Phineas and Ferb, one of the most talked about Disney films, and using it to write a new story based on the events within the film.

Numeracy

In KS1 this week, your child has been developing their knowledge and understanding of time, and applying this knowledge to answer real life time problems. They have been developing their confidence when finding out what an hour later, and an hour before would be of a given time, and have even progressed onto more sophisticated problems. This learning will continue into next week. Year 1 children have also had the opportunity to show off their super numeracy skills, which has allowed us to assess their progress and plan for their next steps.

Topic

The children in KS1 have been learning all about the history of the seaside, from bathing suits to the famous puppet show Punch and Judy. They especially enjoyed creating their very own puppet shows and performing them to the class. These will be uploaded onto the blog when complete, so feel free to log on and browse! Next week we will be carrying out an investigation to find out what plants need in order to grow. We will also be learning about the parts of the plants, and discussing what their specific jobs are.

      
LKS2 Newsletter

We have been extremely proud of all of the children this week. They have all shown a great, sensible attitude towards their assessments and we are very pleased with the progress everyone has made. In other news, the children’s Olympic medals are looking AMAZING! Everyone has been trying really hard with their wonderful sewing and we have been very impressed so far… we can’t wait to see what they will look like when they are all finished!

We would also like to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone for visiting our 3/4 blog. We feel it is very important that the children can showcase their wonderful learning to the world and access the learning they need at home in an easy and convenient way. We have had over 4,000 visits so far! The link can be found on the blog section of our website.

Numeracy
Next week in Numeracy, we shall be focussing on position, direction and rotation. The children will be practicing their compass skills and revisiting language around degrees when thinking about turns, as well as learning about how to read and plot co-ordinates on a grid.

Literacy
In Literacy next week, we will be continuing with our Olympic themed topic, specifically looking at the Paralympic Games and paralympian, Tanni Grey-Thompson. The children will be using the information they learn to help them to write amazing biographies about the sports star and we can’t wait to see what they will produce!

Art
This week the children have been investigating how the human body moves when in action. They worked really well together to use an interactive mannequin to help them look at how the body changes when in different movements. They then practiced sketching the different poses and produced some outstanding pictures. The program they used can be found here if they want to visit it again at home: http://xtras.tabuleiro.com/products/shapeshifter/skeleton_viewer.htm   

PE
During PE this half term we will be developing our athletic skills in preparation for sports day. We will be practicing and improving our running, throwing and jumping techniques. Please can you ensure your child has their outdoor PE kit with them every Monday and leaves it in school all week.

Reminders
·      We will be holding a meeting in the hall on Tuesday (26th June) at 3:30pm for parents of all year 3 children who are interesting on going on our residential to East Barnby.
·      Year 4s will need to bring their swimming kits every Friday and remember to take it home to have it washed. There will be no swimming on Friday 6th July due to training day!
·      Please make sure your child's belongings are clearly labelled.

Spellings
Group 1
Group 2
  1. than
  1. famous
  2. that
  2. various
  3. them
  3. dangerous
  4. then
  4. curious
  5. tree
  5. furious
  6. those
  6. cough
  7. these
  7. enough
  8. tried
  8. rough
  9. their
  9. dough
10. there
10. though

 UKS2 News Roundup:

This week's achievers are all of Miss Gascoigne's class for their fantastic new school song. The children        worked really hard in music last half term with Mrs Brook to re-write the lyrics to a popular song and used
 lyrics to celebrate life at Robin Hood Primary School.  This song was performed in assembly on Friday and was a real hit. Well done everybody.
  • The Wish to Walk event will be held on Monday afternoon. Please make sure that you have sensible footwear and appropriate clothing for the weather. Even if it's raining, we still plan to walk a mile! Well done to all the children who have been busy collecting sponsorship for this event.
Dates for your diary:
  • Wednesday 27th June- Year 6 residential meeting at 4:30pm for parents and carers of current Year 5s
  • Monday 9th July- Sports Day
  • Friday 13th July- Year 6 Fashion Show in assembly at 2:30pm followed by Celebration Friday after school
  • Monday 16th July- Year 6 performance of Hoodwinked at 2pm
  • Tuesday 17th July- Year 6 performance of Hoodwinked at 6pm
  • Monday 23rd July- Leavers' Assembly at 2pm
Numeracy:
  • This week, Year 5’s have been learning how to recognise and extend number sequences such as square numbers, triangular numbers and the Fibonacci sequence! Next week the Year 5 children will be learning about the value of decimals, how to continue sequences of decimal numbers and how to read scales which increase and decrease in decimal integers.    
  • Year 6s, in teams, have been planning and creating Numeracy help sheets for a number of concepts including 2D and 3D shape, time and angles. We're planning to make these available for classrooms around school and on the school website. Next week, we'll be developing these further to ensure they are factually accurate as well as consistent in style and presentation.
Literacy:
Other areas of the curriculum:
  • In RE, the children have been reading the story of the Good Samaritan and discussing who their neighbours are. They've been finding out about the work of Christian charities such as Christian Aid and the Tear Fund.
  • In ICT, we've been learning how to use features of iPhoto to edit and organise photos taken around school.

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